Been engrossed in the book recently. I purposely left out the Black Freighter parts.

Impressed at the level of detail (again!). It's simply staggering.

I even found a few things I hadn't noticed before.

Some of the instances of the smiley face pop up that I hadn't seen previously. ie the hydrant socket on page 6 of chapter XII. Last frame on page 28, Chapter VII.

In frame 2 on page 26 of Chapter XI we see Veidt's face. There's a realistic splash of blood over his eye. Hadn't noticed that until now. The splashed badge is a symbolic version of it.

I think there is a reference to the Black Freighter story from Veidt. First frame page 27 Chapter XII he starts to complain of nightmares. Horrible dreams of swimming towards something very nasty. Can Veidt have been affected by the events or the beastie's brain? Is he an old Shea fan? Is it his "first" sign of impending madness? Is his warped conscience getting to him?

Currently re-reading V for Vendetta. More Moore. Cracking story. Jet black humour. Was completed about the time I left England. The creators weren't so thrilled as to where blighty was headed then. Wonder what they think these days?

Last saturday I was talking with my 18 years old nephew about Watchmen. I lent him the book a couple of weeks ago and he just finished it. We were talking about all the details he missed in his first read. He asked me about the 80's and if I, who lived my youth in that decade, feel in some different way the spirit of the book. I liked the question, because I haven´t realize till that moment that he has never live with the fear of a nuclear war, and maybe the thirties like me really understand better than the younger guys the tension that stands in the background of the story.What do you think?

This is why we have already the poster for the movie change the Vice President to the President. An audience of most of today's younger adults wouldn't remember the... wait, what forum am I in, is this the graphic novel one or the movi one, I get confused and post about the movie al the time in the threads that are supposed to be reserved for the book only.

I suppose we are still living under the threat of a nuclear war! There are more willing fingers on buttons than ever.

The warheads haven't gone away.

The immediate threat from the "Soviet Union" is diluted considerably due to the level of détante after Glasnost, Perestrojka and many back-slapping G8-meetings. But there are other nasty regímes waiting on the sidelines for their go at powermongering.

There hasn't been an actual all-out nuclear war because the gloves are still on due to diplomatic rules and regulations of conduct.

Europe looks a lot different these days. The former soviet satellite states have all turned west and become democracies, some countries into smaller states (Jugoslavia resulting in a horrible ethnic war and Czechoslovakia quietly after a vote). And former soviet republics are, for the most part, democracies, too. There are one or two troublesome exceptions, though.

Most of the high-profile power states have all been calling on the Terrorist Threat during the past few years. The "War on Terror" has been used as a codename for hammering indigenous peoples who's militia have been violently, remorselessly, moaning about their perceived rights.

Palestinians, Kurds, Talibans, Sunnis, Shiites, Muslim fundamentalists, Chechnyans and so on. Some of them have been the root of some shocking events in terms of horror and lost lives. (9/11 and the fateful Beslan hostage crisis).

Most of the high-profile power states have all been calling on the Terrorist Threat during the past few years. The "War on Terror" has been used as a codename for hammering indigenous peoples who's militia have been violently, remorselessly, moaning about their perceived rights.

Well, the good news is that the U.S. finally proclaimed its War on Terror, so I wouldn't expect terrorism to be around much longer. In the seventies and eighties we, as a country, proclaimed both a War on Poverty and a War on Drugs, and take a look around! No drugs or poverty here! So screw you, TeamEurope!

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the thirties like me really understand better than the younger guys the tension that stands in the background of the story

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I suppose we are still living under the threat of a nuclear war! There are more willing fingers on buttons than ever

The mushroom cloud has become such a powerful, iconic image that I don't think the meme of nuclear armageddon has escaped a younger generation. I'm not convinced that, for story-telling purposes, believing the tension between the Soviets and the US would be a difficult leap for an audience of any age.

Well, the good news is that the U.S. finally proclaimed its War on Terror, so I wouldn't expect terrorism to be around much longer. In the seventies and eighties we, as a country, proclaimed both a War on Poverty and a War on Drugs, and take a look around! No drugs or poverty here! So screw you, TeamEurope!

yeeeees, no drugs or poverty here either

Well, maybe the nuclear fear is still there. I don´t know if the same level than in the Cold War. Now there's not a "mutual destruction" scenario. There's not a "doomsday clock". When I was a child I had nightmares about a nuclear apocalypse. I don't know if young people feel the same with the "War on Terror". Maybe yes.

But all this conversation leads me to another question: the Veidt plan was understandable in the 80's when we had only two superpowers in a tension war. Now, with all the sides that mentions soupdragon, with all we have learned about how international conflicts works... don't you think that the "unique enemy" strategy is a little naive, coming from the "more clever man in the world"?

I agree completely that the books have a different resonance with those of us who lived through the cold war tensions.

namuras wrote:

There's not a "doomsday clock".

Sure there is... DD created this site, right?

Seriously, the clock is now the closest it has been since 1984. We are currently at only five minutes till Midnight.

According to Wikipedia: The clock was started at seven minutes to midnight during the Cold War in 1947. The Doomsday Clock is still maintained by the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. Since its introduction, the clock has appeared on the cover of each issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The first representation of the clock was produced in 1947, when artist Martyl Langsdorf, the wife of physicist, Alexander Langsdorf, Jr., who worked on the Manhattan Project, was asked by magazine cofounder Hyman Goldsmith to design a cover for the June issue. The number of minutes before midnight, a measure of the degree of nuclear, environmental, and technological threats, is updated periodically. The clock is currently set to five minutes to midnight, having been advanced by two minutes on January 17, 2007. Midnight represents "catastrophic destruction". The analogy originally represented the threat of global nuclear war, but has since evolved to include nuclear weapons, climate-changing technologies and "new developments in the life sciences and nanotechnology that could inflict irrevocable harm."

edit: (by the way, the clock in our world is set at exactly the same time it was in the alternate 1980's of the first issue according to the Gazette headlines on page 18.)

I agree with you that the film would resonate with middle aged adults a bit better than it would with younger adults who wouldn't know the difference between Billy Holiday and DEVO. By the way, Devo took its name from their concept of "de-evolution" - the idea that instead of evolving, mankind has actually regressed, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society. Their music echoed this view of society as rigid, repressive, and mechanical, with appropriate touches -- jerky, robotic rhythms; an obsession with technology and electronics (the group was among the first non-prog rock bands to make the synthesizer a core element); often atonal melodies and chord progressions - all of which were filtered through the perspectives of geeky misfits.

Can't you just hear the devo version of Satisfaction playing while Dan and Laurie are going at it from 6:40pm until nearly 2am!

Yeah, the book is awesome! Other things I noticed after my first reading was all the "blood stained smiley faces" hidden like Easter eggs throughout the book.

I have yet to find any hidden smiley, can you point me towards one or two?

c

Well. . .Chapter 12, page 24, bottom panel. After Doc Manhattan vaporizes Rorshach, his blood is evaporating across a hover bike and the entrance to Veidt's lair. The entrance is yellow, the blood is red, the hover bike is the "left eye" and there's something hanging down which crosses the blood, in essence being the right eye. There's a swirving line that represents the smile.

Yeah, the book is awesome! Other things I noticed after my first reading was all the "blood stained smiley faces" hidden like Easter eggs throughout the book.

I have yet to find any hidden smiley, can you point me towards one or two?

c

Well. . .Chapter 12, page 24, bottom panel. After Doc Manhattan vaporizes Rorshach, his blood is evaporating across a hover bike and the entrance to Veidt's lair. The entrance is yellow, the blood is red, the hover bike is the "left eye" and there's something hanging down which crosses the blood, in essence being the right eye. There's a swirving line that represents the smile.

Just noticed this and thought it was pretty interesting. Chapter 11, Page 2: Ozymandias is watching his bank of televisions at Karnak. There a 18 screens visible in the panel - 9 on the left and 9 on the right. Just like the standard 9 panel per page layout in the graphic novel.

So he's watching, like we're watching...

_________________Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music - George Carlin